Law allowing removal of school boards under Supreme Court review

Published 12:00 am, Thursday, October 27, 2011

HARTFORD -- A law that allows education leaders to remove and replace sweep out dysfunctional school boards in struggling districts is now under the state Supreme Court's scrutiny.

Justices heard arguments Thursday in a lawsuit originating in Bridgeport, where six of the nine school board members, the mayor and the schools superintendent asked the state Board of Education in July to take control of city schools. Local and state officials had called it a dysfunctional, underfunded school system with some of the worst test performances in the state.

Connecticut officials appointed new members under the previously untested 2007 law, created by the General Assembly to help turn around chronically low-achieving districts where students' academic futures are in jeopardy.

Now, Supreme Court justices are being asked to decide whether removing an elected board violates voters' rights to be represented by candidates they choose -- and, if so, whether the state violated its own law by letting Bridgeport skip a training step that might or might not have been mandatory.

"We call ourselves the Constitution State, not the coup d'etat state," attorney Norman Pattis, who represents several of the plaintiffs, told the Supreme Court justices at Thursday's arguments.

Pattis said the takeover essentially tells Bridgeport residents that they are "too stupid" to run their own schools or determine what's best for students. He added sardonically, "What's a little fascism among friends so long as the children are well-served?"

Attorneys for the state and city say they had a legal and moral obligation to step in before more generations of Bridgeport's students spend their childhood in schools that fail to help many of them make academic progress.

Many of the city's 20,000 students fall short of even the most basic progress goals in math, reading and writing; its annual dropout rate is almost four times the state average; and it faces chronic budget problems and political infighting.

The decision to seek the state takeover was reached by the Bridgeport board's duly elected majority, accepted and endorsed by state education officials, and has resulted in a well-qualified new board making progress, attorneys said.

"Bridgeport's public education system is in a state of crisis, and the (previous) board reacted to that ... the people have spoken, democracy has worked," said John Bohannon, the attorney for the city, mayor, superintendent and the six school board members who sought to dissolve their board.

The Supreme Court justices didn't say when they expect to rule in the case, which could have major implications throughout Connecticut. Parents in Bridgeport and elsewhere are watching it closely, particularly in urban centers where schools could become takeover targets because their students' academic progress has been lagging.

State officials haven't said publicly whether other school districts are being eyed for potential takeovers.

Those who opposed the Bridgeport action say that even if the Supreme Court upholds the 2007 law, Bridgeport and state officials skipped a step that requires the state to provide training to help dysfunctional school boards get back on track.

But attorney Mark Kohler of the state attorney general's office said there was no reason for the state not to act on Bridgeport's takeover request or to force them to accept offers of training when they considered the problems too dire for that intermediate step.

"The local board told the state, 'We don't think that's productive. We choose to forgo that training,'" he said.